If need be, the New England Patriots are here as the balm should long-suffering baseball fans need some emotional rescue. As consumed as this city is about their beloved Red Sox this weekend, the region's NFL football team is methodically making its case for being one of the best of all time.

This afternoon at Gillette Stadium, the Super Bowl champions will attempt to push their NFL record winning streak to 20 in a row against the visiting Seattle Seahawks.

Publicly anyway, the Pats are playing down the feat because it has been accomplished over two seasons.

Unlike Tiger Woods, who stubbornly claimed to have captured golf's Grand Slam because he held all four majors at once over two years, the Patriots don't dare cite such phooey out of respect for the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

To many, those Super Bowl champion Fish remain the ultimate team because of its undefeated season.

These Patriots have opened the subject for debate, however, and with each win the case gains credence.

The closest New England came to celebrating the unofficial record last Sunday was with a Gatorade bath for coach Bill Belichick, who told players after the game that "they had accomplished something no one else has."

For the most part, the players have publicly stayed low key.

"I'm sure you could point to it and say, 'hey, this hasn't happened much,'" Pats linebacker Mike Vrabel said. "But it's really not going to help us with what we want to get done.

STIFFER TESTS

"Most of those victories involve last year and that really doesn't mean anything to us."

Today's game against the Seahawks (3-1), an emerging force in the NFC, begins a string of stiffer tests for the Pats.

The next four Sundays, the AFC East leaders at 4-0 will face teams who enter this week's play with winning records.

The Seahawks would be undefeated but for a fourth-quarter collapse last week against the St. Louis Rams.

Next week it's the still undefeated New York Jets followed by dates with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Rams.

Keeping the streak intact hasn't always been easy.

Two weeks ago, the champs needed their opponent to self-destruct, something the 2004 Buffalo Bills have perfected. A week ago, the Dolphins lost by 14 but pummelled quarterback Tom Brady after blitzing all afternoon.

"The thing that allows the Patriots to keep winning is they don't make the mistakes that keep hurting themselves," Bills quarterback Drew Bledsoe said.

"There are some teams that have a little more talent, but what it really comes down to is eliminating those pivotal plays that really swing a game against you."

It also comes down to coaching and personnel. Dynasties aren't supposed to happen in this era where rigid salary cap restrictions create parity.

Instead, the Patriots have won two of the past three years with teams that don't overwhelm their opponents.

Where the '72 Dolphins kept the core of their team together for years, the Patriots have had to re-tool. Case in point was the 12 new faces in this year's opening day lineup.

"The Patriots have to deal with so many factors that teams of a generation ago never did," former Green Bay Packers general manager Ron Wolf told Sports Illustrated.

"Their accomplishment in this era of free agency puts their streak on top of all the others."

That it has happened in a city where the most notorious streak is 85 years and counting since a World Series win and in a league that discourages dynasties, the record means that much more.